or, I beseech you! See, he is an inch taller as he relates the
advantages. And here endeth his pride, his knowledge, and his use.
But when your son gets abroad he will be taken out of his hand by
his society with men of rank and letters, with whom he will pass the
greatest part of his time."

So much for the bear-leader; and now a remark or two on the young
man's chances of getting into good foreign society; and then--the
benediction:

"Let me observe, in the first place, that company which is really
good is very rare and very shy. But you have surmounted this difficulty,
and procured him the best letters of recommendation to the
most eminent and respectable in every capital. And I answer that
he will obtain all by them which courtesy strictly stands obliged to
pay on such occasions, but no more. There is nothing in which we
are so much deceived as in the advantages proposed from our connexions
and discourse with the literati, &c., in foreign parts, especially
if the experiment is made before we are matured by years or
study. Conversation is a traffic; and if you enter it without some
stock of knowledge to balance the account perpetually betwixt you,
the trade drops at once; and this is the reason, however it may be
boasted to the contrary, why travellers have so little (especially good)
conversation with the natives, owing to their suspicion, or perhaps
conviction, that there is nothing to be extracted from the conversation
of young itinerants worth the trouble of their bad language, or
the interruption of their visits."

Very true, no doubt, and excellently well put; but we seem to have got
some distance, in spirit at any rate, from Luke xv. 13; and it is with
somewhat too visible effect, perhaps, that Sterne forces his way
back into the orthodox routes of pulpit disquisition. The youth,
disappointed with his reception by "the literati," &c., seeks "an
easier society; and as bad company is always ready, and ever lying in
wait, the career is soon finished, and the poor prodigal returns--the
same object of pity with the prodigal in the Gospel." Hardly a good
enough "tag," perhaps, to reconcile the ear to the "And now to," &c.,
as a fitting close to this pointed little essay in the style of the
Chesterfield Letters. There is much internal evidence to show that
this so-called sermon was written either after Sterne's visit to or
during his stay in France; and there is strong rea